Chase leads the pack among the nation's top mortgage servicers when gauging the number of refinances completed that reduced rates for distressed residential borrowers in Arizona.

Chase accounted for 57 percent of the refinances completed in Arizona between March 1 and Sept. 30, according to the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight, the entity created to oversee the mortgage relief efforts of the nation’s top five mortgage servicers.

Wells Fargo accounted for 30 percent of the total. Citibank's refinances come to just over 11 percent of the total. Bank of America and Ally Bank represented roughly 1.5 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively.

However, Chase averaged a rate reduction of only 1.85 percent on its distressed refinances, slightly below the average rate reduction of 2.05 percent for all five servicers in Arizona.

Nationally the average rate reduction of the five servicers equaled 2.34 percent.

The other four servicers all averaged a higher rate reduction than Chase (see below).

Bank of America averaged the highest average rate reduction on its loans, 2.87 percent.

In terms of the total dollar amount refinanced by each bank, the relationship among the five mortgage services paralleled the number of units refinanced with Chase at the top.

These refinances are part of the larger effort to provide approximately $20 billion of relief to distressed homeowners throughout the U.S.

Forty-nine state attorneys general and the mortgage servicers agreed to the terms of the relief in February 2012. Relief operations began March 1.

The primary vehicles for mortgage relief have been short sales, where the balanced owed on a mortgage after a home is sold is forgiven, and principal reductions, where the lender reduces the amount of debt the homeowner must repay.